The man halted, hesitated, backed away, both hands half raised.
"Ann, you wouldn't shoot me!" he whispered.
"You said ... you'd strangle me, Ned,"—leaning against the wall for support, because weakness had swept over her.
Lytton drew a hand across his eyes. He trembled visibly.
"But ... I was mad, Ann," he stammered. "I was crazy; I wouldn't...."
Her hands dropped to her sides and she turned her face from him, shutting her eyes and frowning at the helplessness that came over her with the excitement and the fear of a physical encounter. She could brave any moral clash, but her body was a woman's body, her strength a woman's strength, and now, when she faced disaster, her muscles failed her.
Ned comprehended. He stepped quickly to her side, reached to the hand that held the weapon, fastened on it and with a wrench, jerked it free from her limp grasp.
"You would, would you?" he muttered, his old malevolence returning with assurance that the woman could no longer defend herself. "This! Where did you get it?"—surveying the weapon.
"It's Bayard's."
"He gave it to you to use on me?"—with a short laugh.